{"id":7388,"date":"2021-08-25T17:22:58","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T16:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/?p=7388"},"modified":"2022-04-11T16:38:37","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T15:38:37","slug":"abrahams-tea-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/abrahams-tea-round\/","title":{"rendered":"Abraham’s Tea Round"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a couple of abortive pandemic-struck attempts at a Paddy Buckley round, I decided to stop focussing on a load of hills I’ve already run across hundreds of times, and strike out for somewhere new instead. Abraham’s Tea Round<\/a> has been on my list for a while now, and so I found myself outside George Fisher in Keswick at 07:30 on a Friday morning in early July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Haydn
In such a rush to start that I couldn’t even frame a photo correctly.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The route visits all of the summits visible from the cafe upstairs in George Fisher, clocking in at almost 47 km and over 3,000 m of ascent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I hadn’t really read much about it, and didn’t really know the route, so set off very much with a ‘suck it and see’ mentality. The one thing I had figured out is that it was easy enough to just turn around and head home at any point if I wasn’t feeling great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately I went well around the top end of Derwent Water and Catbells, which I’d not been up for 25 years or more. Up onto Robinson, and I passed another couple who were also out on the round. The descent to Buttermere provided the day’s first bit of excitement, being a super-steep descent that dropped height at a ludicrous rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View
Descend the fence, steeply, to the road along Buttermere. AKA freefall.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

From there it was decision-time as to whether I continued on the Round route or skipped High Stile and headed for the return leg. Everything was going well though, so I turned left and skirted the lake shore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View
I only ever see Buttermere in glorious sunshine.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The heat really started to kick in on the rising traverse below Low Crag, so I was glad to refill my water at Comb Beck and cool down with a general splash around. I had some vague timings in my head for a 10-hour round, and had to start pushing hard to the summit of High Stile to keep them in sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View
Finally, water!
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

From there it was around to Red Pike – not visible from George Fisher, but the recommended route down to Buttermere to minimise erosion. Last time I visited Red Pike was on the Great Lakeland 3 Day in 2016<\/a>, in zero visibility and finding the summit only with the assistance of some fellow Bowliners. It was much easier to find this time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pointing out the summit of Red Pike.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Down to Buttermere, and the heat of the valley. Fortunately the cafe was open, so I downed coke, water, a Calippo and some chocolate to rehydrate and refuel. Another pull uphill in the searing heat, and this was the first point at which I considered cutting things short. I was a bit worried that this section went a long way without any shade whatsoever, but the climb wasn’t as bad as I’d remembered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another refill of water approaching Coledale Hause, and I hit the first of two out-and-back sections. I knew it was coming, but hadn’t looked in any detail at the map, so was a bit demoralised to see just how far it was out to Grisedale Pike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Quite the out-and-back – left-hand side of the image to the right-hand summit (Grisedale Pike). Then back again.
\u00a9 Haydn Williams 2021<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately it looked worse than it was, and I found a nice traverse line on the return leg to avoid having to go all the way to the top of Hobcarton Crag twice. A sit down halfway up Eel Crag and some mental arithmetic provided the realisation that I could probably still come in under 10 hours if I stopped faffing and carried on running. Thus, I knuckled down and knocked off the final couple of summits and descended on wobbly legs into Braithwaite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there the 10-hour deadline was looking OK, and 09:30 seems distinctly possible. I’ve never been a fan of running on the flat though, so I had to dig deep past Portinscale and around the throngs of holidaymakers in Keswick to the door of George Fisher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 09:34 as my final time I didn’t quite hit the revised deadline, but as a decidedly average runner I was pleased with a quicker-than-average completion. The contrast with the scene of my recent exploits, the Paddy, was lovely, giving good running and very little pathless meandering. I’m sure I could do sub-9 hours on a cooler day (and knowing the route now), but the newfound desire to visit other places means I’m unlikely to try any time soon. :)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a couple of abortive pandemic-struck attempts at a Paddy Buckley round, I decided to stop focussing on a load of hills I’ve already run across hundreds of times, and strike out for somewhere new instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1397,420,163,396],"class_list":["post-7388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-abrahams-tea-round","tag-fell-running","tag-lake-district","tag-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haydnwilliams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}